What is HIPAA?
Signed into federal law in 1996, HIPAA was created to combat fraud and abuse in the health insurance industry. The Act stipulates that all United States health care organizations must “maintain reasonable and appropriate, technical, and physical safeguards to prevent intentional or unintentional use or disclosure of protected health information.”
HIPAA protection attaches to all information relating “to the past, present, or future physical or mental health or condition of an individual, or the past, present, or future payment for the provision of healthcare.” Materials that would contain such protected information include patient histories, logs, notes, forms, billing and insurance information, and any other records containing personal information in the possession of healthcare providers.
Who is affected by HIPAA?
Regardless of size, all healthcare providers in the United States must have documented policies defining reasonable measures that are being taken to protect personal health information and ensure the organization is protecting against unauthorized access to personal information.
This includes all organizations or individuals who retain and/or collect health-related information, such as: hospitals, medical centers, insurance companies, billing centers, collection agencies, doctors, dentists, chiropractors, psychiatrists, psychologists and any other institutions or individuals responsible for personal health-related information.
By purging outdated material and storing your active and/or inactive files with NORTHEAST RECORD RETENTION, we will assist your company in maintaining a document shredding program and/or records management program that meets or exceeds HIPAA regulations.
NORTHEAST RECORD RETENTION uses state-of-the-art technology and highly trained and certified security professionals. We efficiently shred all documents either on your premises or at our state-of-the-art records center. We give you the option to watch the shredding process, and also provide you with a Certificate of Destruction that records each shred. With our document management and records storage program, you will quickly and accurately gain access to your documents. We use the O’Neil Software Inventory system with barcodes that will track all activity, help determine which files to maintain, how long to do so, and how to legally dispose of them when the records are no longer needed.
Trust NORTHEAST RECORD RETENTION as your partner in compliance with HIPAA for maintaining your document security program.
For more information on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), visit:
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/
DISCLAIMER: This is only a brief summary of the law. Please consult a legal professional for more information on how the specifics of this law may apply to your business.
